The Last Astronaut, by David Wellington

ISBN: 9780356512297
Amazon ID: B07KPK1ZWV

In the chapter "Excursion (1)", Jansen and Stevens are travelling along a rope which is attached to the inside of a rotating spaceship. They started at the centre of the ship (which is the axis of rotation) and are moving towards the outside.

Due to the rotation, they experience a force which feels to them like gravity, pulling them towards the outside of the ship, and one of them is worried about letting go of the rope and "falling".

This makes me curious.

Suppose you are floating in a spaceship which is not rotating and therefore has no artificial gravity. There is no "up" and no "down".

Suppose then that the spaceship starts rotating around you, but you remain floating inside it (ie: not in contact with any part of it). Surely you simply remain floating, because the gravity effect is just that - "an effect" - and is not a real force on your body.

So, if Jansen or Stevens were to let go of the rope, they would maintain any real velocity they had relative to the ship at the time they let go, but surely they would not be "pulled" towards what had felt like "down" while they were attached to the rope?

As you continue to read The Last Astronaut, I can't help feeling "did the author really have to make the place this big? It takes ages to get from one place to another, with no progression of the story."

And, as you get to understand the characters better, how the hell did at least two out of three ever pass astronaut training and get to become crew members, when they deal so badly with the chain of authority and team cohesiveness?

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